


Game Theory

by Settiai



Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: Critmas Gifts, Dimension Travel, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Gen, Magic, One Shot, Yuletide, Yuletide 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-21 18:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/pseuds/Settiai
Summary: Ashley and Laura open a Critmas gift and find themselves in another world. Their day just gets weirder from there.





	Game Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [selfishashell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selfishashell/gifts).



Laura Bailey woke up in an unfamiliar bed.

It wasn't as if it that was anything particularly unusual. Between cons and vacations, not to mention visiting both her own family and Travis's on occasional, she'd spent a fair amount of time in hotels and the like over the years. Still, she usually had some standards, and the bed that she was currently in definitely didn't meet any of them. It was hard as a rock with almost no cushioning, and the room around her had an unfamiliar smell to it that wasn't exactly pleasant.

Not to mention she could tell that there was someone curled up behind her in the bed, long hair brushing against her neck. And unless Travis had magically found a way to grow his hair out overnight, it wasn't him. Which was disconcerting for an entirely different reason.

Laura took a few quiet, steadying breaths. Then she pushed herself up into a sitting position, immediately turning to the side to see exactly who was in bed with her.

She found herself staring into the familiar face of a just-barely-awake Ashley Johnson.

Ashley blinked up at her owlishly. "Laura?" she asked, her voice still thick with sleep. Then she seemed to realize the weirdness of the situation, her eyes narrowing as she sat up as well. "What the fuck?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Laura said, quickly glancing around the room. The best thing she could say about it was that it was rustic, and even that was stretching things. It was a small, bare room with nothing in it save for the bed they were in, two leather bags resting on the floor nearby...

... and what looked like a ridiculously ornate bow, a quiver of arrows, and a giant fucking sword resting against the wall beside the bags. Not to mention two sets of what looked like leather armor of some kind.

Laura blinked. Nothing changed. "What the fuck?"

"I just asked that," Ashley said, elbowing her lightly in the side. Then she caught sight of the weapons and armor herself, and she went still. "Oh, wow. That's new."

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds. They just sat there, staring.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Laura asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

Ashley gave a half-hearted shrug. "Watching _Jumanji_ on the sofa at your place," she said. "You?"

Laura just nodded in agreement. "The same."

It had been a fairly normal night, all things considered. For the first time in a very long time, Ashley was in town while Brian wasn't, so she and Travis had invited her over for dinner. They'd been watching a movie, sipping at drinks and opening a few gifts from Critters that Marisha had passed onto them the day before.

Then Travis had gotten up to go put Ronin to bed after he'd fallen asleep on his chest. The moment he'd disappeared down the hallway, Ashley had grabbed a small box addressed to him and Laura that he'd been hoarding since he'd first seen it. Laura had opened it, just to glance inside before he got back. There had been a flash of bright white light, and... and...

Well, and then the next thing she remembered, they'd woken up wherever they were.

"What exactly are we wearing?"

Laura glanced down at Ashley's confused-sounding question. Then she frowned. They were both in what looked to be undergarments of some type, but they weren't anything like their usual clothing. They were made of a rough, off-white material, and the cloth on their chests was more like a breast band than an actual bra.

"I have no idea," she said slowly.

"It reminds me of something we'd wear at Ren Faire," Ashley said, reaching down to poke at the cloth wrapped loosely around her chest.

"Yeah," Laura agreed, "but do you remember ever buying an outfit like this?"

Ashley shook her head.

The two of them shared a look. Then Ashley stood up, a tiny bit of hesitance to the action that Laura wasn't used to seeing from her. But then again, Laura wasn't used to waking up in an unfamiliar room wearing clothes that fit well despite her not remembering buying them. Or changing into them. Or _anything_. And she suspected that Ashley wasn't particularly used to it either.

As Laura watched, Ashley walked over towards the packs that were sitting on the floor. She knelt down in front of them and opened one, peering inside.

Then she frowned.

"What?" Laura asked, leaning forward. She still couldn't see anything, not from the angle she was at. "What's in it?"

Ashley picked up the one she'd been looking into and turned it upside down. Nothing fell out.

"It's empty," she said, a hint of confusion in her voice.

It was Laura's turn to frown. "Really?" she asked, standing up herself and walking over to grab the other one. "But why—" She trailed off, not entirely sure where to even start when it came to asking questions.

Ashley gave her another shrug.

Laura was pretty decent at guessing how much things weighed after carrying Ronin around, and her best guess was that the bag weighed fifteen pounds or so. That seemed a bit heavy for something that was empty, but she didn't see anything when she looked inside. "Huh," she said. "That doesn't make any sense."

Ashley reached inside her bag, feeling around. Then she shook her head. "Nothing."

Laura looked more closely at the bag in her hands. It looked almost familiar, like something she'd seen before. In a photo, maybe? Or a painting? Or... oh. _Oh_.

Or fanart.

She blinked. Then, for good measure, she blinked again. Because the thought that had just popped into her head made _no sense_ at all. But then again, nothing had made much sense the last few minutes.

"Hey, Ashley," Laura said slowly. "I'm going to try something that may be crazy."

Ashley had already put down her bag and was poking at the sword instead. She glanced over at Laura. "I'll take crazy at this point if it means you have any idea what's going on," she replied, "because I've got nothing right now."

Laura nodded. Then she took a deep breath, not entirely certain whether she was hoping to be right or wrong, before reaching into the bag that she was holding. She grabbed the bottom of it and, carefully, turned it inside out.

There was a loud clattering sound as a rather ridiculous amount of shit poured out onto the floor from the seemingly empty bag. Laura jerked a little even though she'd halfway been expecting it, while Ashley literally jumped several inches into the air.

It took a good ten seconds for everything to empty out of the bag.

Ashley stared at Laura as the last thing in the bag, which looked like a tightly closed carrying case of some type, fell out and landed on the small pile in the middle of the floor. A handful of coins that seemed to be made of pure gold went rolling at the impact, stopping as they hit the ornate leather armor resting nearby.

"What the hell?" Ashley asked. She paused for a long moment before adding even more emphatically: "I mean, just, what the _hell_?"

Laura gave her a weak shrug. "I think that this," she said, holding up the now actually empty bag in her hands, "is a bag of holding."

There was a very long moment of silence.

"A bag of holding," Ashley repeated slowly, a noticeable air of disbelief to her tone. "Like... from Dungeons and Dragons?"

Laura nodded.

Ashley's eyebrows both went up. "You think it's a _magic_ bag?"

"I mean—" Laura trailed off, gesturing at the pile of things at her feet.

Ashley followed her gaze. Then, with a slight furrow to her brow, she reached into the seemingly empty bag in her hands and did the exact same thing that Laura had. A steady stream of items, large and small, started coming out of it and clattering against the floor as soon as she turned it inside out.

Ashley looked back at Laura with wide eyes. "What the _fuck_?" she repeated.

Laura just gave her a semi-desperate shrug in reply.

*

The good thing was that it was surprisingly easy to figure out whose clothing was whose. While both sets of armor looked surprisingly similar to each other, as if they'd been made by the same person, Ashley and Laura had different enough body shapes that they were able to quickly piece together which armor fit each of them.

Of course, that didn't explain how they'd gotten... wherever they were.

It had slowly become clear that it must have been very early in the morning when they'd woken up. The room had steadily grown brighter as sunlight started streaming in through the grimy window along one wall, and they'd started hearing the sound of movement and talking coming from around them as well as below over the past half hour or so.

They'd both put on the armor that they'd found beside the bags, considering there wasn't much else in the way of clothes for them to wear, before going through what they'd found. There was a surprisingly heavy amount of coins in there, most of them gold or silver but with a few copper pieces mixed in too. Laura had found several gems in the bag that they'd decided was probably hers, while Ashley had found an almost impressive collection of small knives and daggers in hers.

Both of them had found vials filled with liquids of varying colors in their bags. They'd shared a single look before promptly deciding they wouldn't be touching any of those unless they absolutely had to do so. A few of them were labeled, but the writing on them was in a language that neither of them could read.

The question was what they were going to do next.

"We're going to need to go downstairs, aren't we?" Laura asked.

Ashley nodded. "Probably."

Both of them glanced at the door without making a move towards it.

Laura wasn't sure about Ashley, but she was at least a little worried about how she'd react if there was anyone downstairs with pointed ears or feathers or green skin or wings or fur or... well, anything that would make it clear they definitely weren't in California any more. Not to mention she couldn't help but wonder how talking was going to go. They hadn't recognized the language written on the bottles they'd found, so who said they'd understand it being spoken?

Still, there was only one way to find out.

"Okay," Ashley said, clapping her hands together. "Let's do this."

She shot Laura a quicksilver grin before putting her newly-repacked bag over her shoulder and grabbing the giant sword that was still resting against the wall. With a surprisingly quick movement that seemed to imply that Ashley actually had experience using a weapon like that, she fastened the sword and its scabbard around her waist. Then she walked over to the door and threw it open, heading out into the hallway without another word.

Laura stared blankly for a moment. Then she grabbed her own bag and the bow that Ashley, at least, had apparently decided was hers and hurried after her.

The hall was about as impressive as their room had been. It was dimly lit and somewhat dirty, with the lingering scent of urine and smoke in the air, mixing in with the smell of cooking meat coming from downstairs.

... and there was a _tiefling_ just leaving a room a few doors down. An honest to God tiefling, just like in the fanart that Liam had been eagerly throwing at her for years now.

Ashley didn't even blink as she walked right past the tiefling as if it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for her to see people with horns and a tail, but Laura couldn't help but give the man a quick once over as she went past him. He was tall and thin, with red skin that was so dark it was almost black, white hair pulled back into a loose bun, and a pair of gold-framed glasses on his face. If it wasn't for the twitching tail and the curving ram-like horns on his head – well, and the red skin – he wouldn't have looked out of place in L.A.

The tiefling shot her a flirtatious wink as he apparently noticed her staring.

Laura felt her face redden a little, and she quickly hurried after Ashley, resisting the urge to glance back for one last look at her first... well, alien wasn't really the word, since they were apparently in some weird magic world and not outer space. Non-human, maybe? That could work. Non-human.

She forced herself to keep breathing as steady as she could. Yes, there had been a part of her that had suspected they'd see non-humans if they left their room, after what had happened with the two magic bags that they'd found, but it was one thing to think it and something else entirely to actually see it with her own two eyes.

They needed to figure out what the hell had happened it and reverse it. Preferably ASAP, because what did either of them know about magic? Real magic, at least? It was one thing to pretend to have magic in a game, but this was something else entirely.

Ashley came to an abrupt stop, and Laura just barely stopped in time to avoid walking right into her. She hadn't even noticed they were heading down a somewhat rickety staircase until just then, too lost in her own thoughts. They'd just come down to the bottom of it, and a large open room full of people sitting at roughly hewn wooden tables was spread out around them.

Laura was still on the second-to-last step, while Ashley was on the ground floor, so she could see over her head without too much difficulty. It took everything she had to school her face and not gape openly at the scene in front of them. She thought that she'd gotten used to seeing odd things, what with living in L.A. for as long as she had, but she apparently wasn't as blasé about it as she'd thought.

While a good chunk of the room seemed to be made up of humans – or possibly elves, as some of the human-looking ones seemed to have pointed ears when she looked a bit closer – there were still a fair number of... well, non-humans. Tieflings, half-orcs, some smaller people that she assumed were either halfling or gnomes although she wasn't entirely certain how to tell the difference between the two, what looked like a dragonborn over in the corner, a table of those cat people whose names she always forgot, and a handful of people from races that she didn't even recognize.

It was more than a little overwhelming.

"There's an empty table over in the corner if you're looking for one."

In front of her, Ashley startled and glanced off to the side. Laura followed her gaze. A rather androgynous-looking human with ears that were just pointed enough to hint at something else in their ancestry was standing there, a tray of drinks balanced in their hands. They were smiling, but there was a hint of confusion starting to build in their eyes as Ashley and Laura stared blankly at them.

Well, that wouldn't do. The last thing the two of them needed was to draw attention to themselves, at least until they had a better idea what the fuck was happening.

Laura quickly planted a smile on her face, leaning forward a bit so that she was practically resting against Ashley's shoulder. "Thank you!" she said brightly. "We weren't expecting it to be so crowded this early in the morning."

The possibly-but-not-definitely-a-human smiled back, the confused look in their eyes lightening a bit. "Yeah," they agreed. "It's usually not this bad, but with that light show happening off in the hills every night, we're seeing a lot more travelers passing through on their way to explore the ruins." They chuckled and shot the two of them an amused look. "Like you two, for example. I assume that's why you're here?"

Ashley gave a weak laugh that probably sounded much less fake to someone who didn't know her as well as Laura did. "Guilty," she said. "Come on, Laura. Let's go grab that table before someone else gets it."

She gave the possibly-human a brusque nod before heading off in the direction they'd pointed them in. Laura pointedly kept the smile planted on her face as Ashley disappeared off into the crowd. Fake it until you make it. She could do that. "Thank you again."

"Not a problem," they replied. "Want me to bring you something? Breakfast? Drinks?"

Laura's stomach took that moment to grumble, and she quickly nodded. "That would be great," she said. "I'll trust your opinion. Bring us whatever you think tastes the best." Then she paused, glancing around the not-that-clean room they were in. "And that's least likely to kill us."

They nodded at her knowingly before heading off in a different direction, presumably to deliver the drinks they'd been carrying. Laura narrowed her eyes as she watched them leave. While she'd understood what they were saying, and they'd clearly understood her, what she had been hearing didn't seem to line up with the movement of their mouth. It looked almost like dubbing, as if they were saying one thing while she was hearing something else.

Magic, maybe? Some kind of spell, like the one that Liam had Caleb use all the time on the show? Probably. She wasn't sure what else it could be.

And it said a lot that her brain was already jumping to "probably magic" as the first answer to mysteries, after only a few hours in... wherever the hell they were.

Shaking her head, Laura let her smile fade as she headed in the direction that Ashley had disappeared in. It didn't take long to find her. Ashley had claimed the corner table that they'd been pointed towards, resting the giant sword she'd claimed as her own on top of it. Which wasn't exactly subtle, but it seemed to be doing the job of keeping anyone else from trying to claim the empty seats at it.

"Did you notice the way their mouth was moving but the words didn't match up?" Ashley asked bluntly as Laura sat down. "It's everyone. Just take a look around. I don't think anyone in the room is speaking English, even if that's what we're hearing."

Laura nodded. "I noticed," she said. "My best guess is magic, but..." She trailed off, not entirely certain what else to say.

"Yeah, me too," Ashley said with a sigh. "Are you sure you didn't see what was in that box when you opened it?"

Laura shook her head. "Just a bright flash of light," she repeated for what was probably the fourth or fifth time since they'd woken up. She couldn't necessarily blame Ashley for hoping that the answer would change to something more useful, but she had to admit she was starting to get a bit tired of repeating the same thing.

Both of them sunk into silence for a moment.

"Do you think that light show they mentioned might be related?" Ashley asked finally.

Laura gave her a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine," she said, "but it's probably worth checking into."

Two heavy tankards suddenly appeared on the table in front of them with a thud.

"Here you go," the possibly-a-human-but-not-definitely from earlier said cheerfully as they smiled down at them. "Food will be ready in about ten minutes. Do you need anything else right now?"

"We're good," Laura said, quickly planting another smile on her face. "Thanks again."

They winked at her. "It's literally my job."

Without another word, they turned around and headed off to deliver some more drinks that were still on the tray they were balancing in their hand. Once she was certain that they weren't immediately coming back, Laura leaned forward and sniffed the tankard.

She wasn't entirely certain what was inside, but "alcoholic" was definitely a descriptor based on the smell. Laura could already feel her eyes starting to water.

Ashley was watching her with raised eyebrows when she glanced back over at her. Her hand was resting on the handle of the tankard. "When in Rome?"

Laura stared at her for a long moment. Then she sighed and reached for her own tankard. If nothing else, at least she didn't have to worry about breastfeeding for the next few hours. Although if they were stuck there for long, that in itself could become an issue. "When in Rome."

*

Laura wasn't entirely certain what she had expected the landscape outside of the tavern to look like, but she was pretty sure she hadn't imagined it as looking so... well, normal. Yes, the road in the small town it was in was apparently made of dirt instead of being paved, but Laura had grown up in Texas. She'd seen some dirt and gravel roads as a kid, even if they weren't something she'd seen a whole lot of since then. If it wasn't for the complete lack of cars, not to mention electricity, they could have been in some poor town somewhere in the US.

"Is this weird to you?" Ashley asked. "Because this is weird to me."

"We woke up in _another world_ where everything from D&D is apparently real," Laura said dryly, glancing over at Ashley. "Be more specific about exactly what it is that you think is weird."

Ashley gave her an all-encompassing shrug.

Laura pulled her bag a bit higher on her shoulder and kept walking. It had been almost two hours since they'd left the tavern, heading out of the small town it was in. The town wasn't visible behind them any longer. It had disappeared behind them after about twenty minutes of them following the small road into the hills outside of it.

"Do you think anyone's noticed we're gone?" Laura asked quietly. She hadn't meant to ask it, but once the words slipped out she couldn't quite force herself to take them back. "Back home, I mean?"

There was a long pause.

"If time's passing there like it is here, then yeah," Ashley said. "But who knows? I'm sure you've seen as many movies as I have where time resets itself or whatever at the end."

Laura snorted, but she didn't say anything. What was there to say?

Ashley had known her long enough to take the silence for exactly what it was. Without a word, she stepped closer and wrapped her arm around Laura in a one-armed hug. It was awkward, what with the weapons both of them were carrying on them, but it still helped. After a moment's pause, Laura hugged her back – albeit just as one-sidedly.

After almost a full minute, Ashley pulled away. If Laura missed her touch the moment it was gone, well, there wasn't anybody around to notice other than Ashley herself.

"Come on," Ashley said. "Let's go find these ruins that everyone was talking about."

Before they'd left the tavern, they'd managed to get a bit more information out of Pyrel – which was apparently the name of the surprisingly human-looking half-elf who had pointed them towards the table they'd claimed as well as delivered their food and drinks. ("I'm more human than anything," they'd said cheerfully as they delivered another round of drinks to the table, not even pretending not to notice the fact that both Ashley and Laura were staring at their ears. "My mum's a human, and my father's a half-elf who hasn't had a full elf in the family for at least four generations. But it doesn't take much to give you the pointed ears.")

They'd been glad to give some helpful pointers to what they'd assumed were two adventurers passing through. Apparently there had been odd lights appearing in the hills about eight miles from the town for the four months. There'd been a rash of disappearances – and, more importantly, _appearances_ of people who'd claimed to have been teleported there from all over the continent – ever since the lights had first appeared.

Nobody had paid much attention until a month or so earlier, when some rich elf with more money than brains – Pyrel's exact words – had woken up in the morning to find his bed empty and no sign of his traveling companion or his money pouch. He'd immediately assumed it had something to do with the lights he'd heard about rather than anything more mundane like every day thievery and spread the word, offering a somewhat exorbitant sum to whoever could get to the bottom of the mystery.

And the entire area had been swarmed by adventurers of various skill since then.

Pyrel hadn't known anything about what was causing the lights or even much about the people who had randomly appeared in the area, other than the fact that none of them had a clue how they'd gotten there. Still, it had at least been _something_. Ashely and Laura hadn't had to do anything other than glance at each other to make up their mind to head in that direction as soon as they finished breakfast.

It was the only clue they had so far, after all.

Laura glanced over at Ashley, taking a good look at her. She was standing straight, walking confidently forward as if she was used to wearing armor and walking around with a sword as big as her hanging at her side. It wasn't exactly surprising, not really, but it was at least a little unexpected.

"Do you actually know how to use that thing?" Laura asked curiously.

Ashley looked over at her, confusion on her face for a moment before she followed Laura's gaze. "Oh, the sword?"

"Well, that and the five million daggers and knives that I saw you hiding on your person earlier," Laura said dryly.

Something akin to sheepishness flashed across Ashley's face for a second. "I haven't used a sword in years."

Laura's eyebrows went up. "So that's a 'yes' then."

Ashley shrugged a bit helplessly. "What about you?" she asked, clearing searching for a change in subject. "I know you've used a bow before."

"If you can call it that," Laura said, grimacing a bit. She'd managed to hit the target a few times when she'd been dragged out to shoot a bow in the past, but she'd definitely missed more than she'd hit. It had been more than a little disappointing.

Ashley grinned at her, looking surprisingly cheerful considering the circumstances. "Who knows?" she said. "Maybe you'll get a chance to get some practice in before we make it back home."

Laura rolled her eyes. "I hope you realize that you're tempting fate by saying that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ashley shot back cheekily.

Because the universe had a sense of humor, it was at that exact moment that they went around a curve in the road and saw the group of five heavily armed people standing there.

Both of them froze in place.

"Oh, you have to be kidding me," Ashley muttered under her breath.

Laura snorted, trying not to let the utter terror she was suddenly feeling show. "I told you so."

Ashley's hand went down towards the sword at her side. "Shut up."

"Drop your weapons and hand over all of your gold!" a tall, muscular man who Laura assumed was probably a half-orc based on his tusks and grey skin called out. "Do it now!"

Ashley glanced at Laura. Laura looked right back at Ashley.

Then, with a smile that didn't quite manage to hide the fear underneath, Ashley had pulled her sword and was rushing forward with an almost feral yell.

"Oh shit," Laura cursed under her breath as she grabbed for the bow that was still on her back. "Shit, shit, shit."

*

"This is bad," Laura muttered under her breath, the words almost a mantra at that point. "This is so fucking bad."

Ashley had done much better than Laura had expected. She'd clearly been downplaying some things when she'd said she hadn't used a sword in ages, and she definitely had a lot more skill with it than Laura did with a bow. She'd practically flown at the bandits with a single-minded focus that had been more than a little surprising. If Laura hadn't known any better, she would have almost said that it was as if Ashley was in a...

... well, in a rage.

Their day just kept getting weirder and weirder. If they managed to survive the next five minutes, Laura was never going to complain about her life ever again. No matter what smells or substances came out of Ronin's body.

Of course, at the moment, that was a fairly big "if."

One of the bandits came around the tree that Laura had ducked behind, and without a thought she let loose an arrow. It flew past the woman, missing her by a good three feet before embedding in the ground nearby.

The woman watched the arrow fly past her and then looked back towards Laura with a grin. "This is going to be easier than I thought," she said, bringing up a curved dagger that had a nasty-looking sheen to it that Laura didn't trust in the least bit. "You shouldn't have fought back, sweetie. We might have let you live if you hadn't."

Laura froze, utter panic taking over her for a moment. She had no idea what to do. The woman was obviously much more talented with her own weapons than she was with a bow. There wasn't a chance in hell that she could beat her in a fight.

She was going to die. She didn't know where she was or how she'd got there. She didn't know where Ashley was. She didn't know where her husband or her baby were. All she knew was that some woman with pointed ears was threatening her, and if she didn't do something then _she was going to die_.

Laura reacted on instinct, words slipping out of her mouth before she even had time to think about what she was saying. "I _suggest_ that you go find the nearest river and take a walk into it," she spat out, her voice almost quivering with a power that she hadn't even realized was there.

For just a moment, the air around her seemed to glow slightly.

The woman's eyes instantly glazed over. Without a word, or even a glance at Laura, she turned around and started walking away.

Laura stared. "What the hell just happened?" she asked into the thin air around her. She was almost relieved when nobody answered.

Not too far away, someone yelled in pain.

"Ashley," she breathed out, suddenly remembering that her friend was... well, she wasn't entirely certain what she was doing, but she was still fighting. Probably.

Hopefully.

Tightening her grip on the bow in her hands, Laura rushed off in the direction that the yell had come from. She didn't have any idea what she was going to do. The last few minutes had made it clear that using a bow _really_ wasn't her strong suit, and she was pointedly not thinking about whatever the hell had just happened with that bandit.

Laura came out of the trees that she'd darted into and froze. Ashley was standing in the middle of the road, her sword held firmly in her hands and her chest heaving. There wasn't any sign of the bandits, save for one who was trying his best to limp away as fast as he could with blood streaming down his leg.

"Okay, I'm impressed," Laura said, her voice a bit fainter than she'd intended.

Ashley spun around, her eyes wide as she looked at Laura. "Oh, thank God!" she said. "I didn't have any idea where you'd gone."

Laura gave her a weak grin as she put the bow back on her back. "I found a nice tree to hide behind," she said. "You seemed to have everything well in hand."

She didn't mention whatever the fuck had happened with her voice and that bandit. For the time being, she just wanted to keep pressing forward and hopefully figure out how the hell to make it home.

Ashley shot her a look that made it clear that she was well aware that there was something Laura wasn't telling her, but she didn't press. She just reached into the bag she was still wearing on her shoulder, pulling her hand out a moment later with what looked like a cloth.

"Come on," Ashley said, gesturing at some tree stumps about ten or fifteen feet away from the road. "Let's sit down for a bit. I have a feeling this is going to be a long day."

"This has already been a long day," Laura grumbled. That didn't stop her from doing exactly what Ashley was suggesting, making a beeline for the stumps. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and just breathe for a few minutes.

She was an actress. She wasn't supposed to be having near death experiences, at least not from people with swords and daggers and the like.

Ashley gave her a weak grin as she walked beside her, already bringing the cloth up to wipe some of the blood from her sword. She'd clearly been aiming to injure instead of kill, based on the lack of bodies on the ground, which was impressive in itself. Laura had simply been trying to hit someone when she'd shot her bow. She hadn't particularly cared where the arrow landed, as long as it was in someone.

Once they made it to the stumps, both of them dropped down a bit more heavily than they would have otherwise. Ashley kept cleaning the blood off of her sword, while Laura just focused on breathing in and out as steadily as she could.

"Well, that was fun," Ashley said eventually. There was a hint of amusement in her voice.

Laura looked over at her a bit incredulously. "Fun?" she repeated. "We just—" She cut off abruptly, not even sure what to say, and just shook her head.

Ashley gave her a sheepish grin. "I know!" she said. "Don't get me wrong, I was terrified. But..." She trailed off, clearly looking for the right words. "It felt _right_. Fighting. Like for a minute or so, there wasn't anything but me and my opponents."

"You know, that's how Travis always described playing Grog when he raged," Laura pointed out.

Ashley nodded slowly. "I get that," she agreed. "I don't get to play Yasha as much as I'd like, but I think—"

It was almost amusing, watching her suddenly realize what Laura had been getting at. If not for where they were and what had happened less than five minutes earlier, that is.

"You don't think that I was—" Ashley cut herself off, shaking her head. "No. I mean, yes, I'm a little surprised at how much I enjoyed getting to swing a giant sword around, but that's crazy. We're not even from, you know, wherever we are. I couldn't have been _raging_ like I was a barbarian or something. That's impossible."

Laura bit her lip.

"It's impossible," Ashley repeated.

"I think that I used magic," Laura admitted reluctantly. "I told someone to go jump in the nearest river, and I'm pretty sure they went to do just that."

Ashley blinked. Then, for good measure, she blinked again. "You _what_?"

Laura gave her a helpless shrug. It felt like she had been doing that a lot the past few hours.

*

The longer they walked, the more Laura thought about the box that she'd opened just before they'd ended up... wherever they were. She and Ashley were both assuming that it caused whatever it was that had happened to happen, simply because they couldn't think of anything else that it could have been. She just wished she'd paid more attention to it.

It hadn't looked like anything out of the ordinary. It had been a plain cardboard box, just another Critmas gift from one of the fans. She knew that all of their gifts were given at least a cursory lookover to make sure they weren't anything dangerous, especially after some of the bullshit that Marisha had gone through a couple of years earlier. Nobody had thought it was a problem, or they wouldn't have passed it onto her and Travis in the first place.

Except whatever it was had clearly been more than it appeared.

She didn't even know what had been inside. All she had seen when she'd opened it was a flash of light. It had all but blinded her, preventing her from seeing exactly what it was that had caused all of this in the first place.

"It looks like we have company."

Laura glanced up instantly, her hand automatically going for the bow on her shoulder – no matter how bad of a shot she might be with it – before dropping back down when she realized what Ashley had seen.

They'd passed a few people on the small road they were traveling down over the last several hours, most of them heading in the opposite direction than the two of them. Some of them had been adventurers of various stripes who had decided the prize being offered wasn't worth the trouble and had turned back before they ever reached the ruins that were supposedly out there somewhere. Others were locals, farmers and hunters and the like, who had decided getting away from the weird lights they were appearing for a little bit might be the most prudent thing to do.

This looked more like the latter in Laura's opinion.

She glanced over at Ashley and nodded in silent agreement. Both of them stepped to the side, giving the small group of people heading in the opposite direction room get by without any trouble. They looked like a family – at least three generations' worth, if she had to guess – although Laura wasn't completely certain what they were. They looked almost human, but all of them had skin that was varying shades of grey. It reminded her of something, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was.

Laura hadn't realized just how much she was still learning about D&D until she'd found herself in a world where it was apparently _real_.

None of the family said anything to either of them as they passed, although the three adults in the group did give them a respectful nod. And then they were gone, moving further down the road back in the direction that Laura and Ashley had come from.

"Do you have any idea what they were?" Laura asked quietly, once she was fairly certain they were well out of earshot.

Ashley hesitated for a second, and Laura started to get her hopes up that maybe she at least had an idea. Then she shook her head. "No clue."

Laura sighed in disappointment and made a mental note to ask Matt about them whenever they finally made it home. Then she purposefully ignored the tiny voice in her head that was trying its best to replace "when" with "if" because they were going to make it home, damn it, and that was just rude of her brain.

After a few seconds, she started to hum the new _Critical Role_ theme absentmindedly under her breath. She was used to living in the 21st century. She'd lost track hours earlier just how many times she had reached for her phone before realizing it wasn't there. She wasn't used to being out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no technology on her, not even as a back-up.

"Laura?"

There was something off about Ashley's tone of voice. It sounded a bit strangled. Laura quickly stopped humming and looked over at her. "Hmm?"

Ashley was staring at her. "How are you doing that?"

It took Laura a long moment to realize that even though she'd stopped humming, the sound still continued. It was faint, just a hint of musical notes in the air, but it was floating around them almost like an echo.

"I have no idea," Laura said faintly, looking around them wide-eyed. The sound wasn't particularly unpleasant, just surprising. It had to be her that was causing it, but she didn't have any idea what she had done. Or, more importantly, how she had done it.

Ashley was still staring at her.

"I guess you weren't kidding when you said you'd used magic," she finally said, letting out an amused huff that might have been laughter.

Laura gave her a sheepish shrug. "Maybe I'm a wizard?"

Ashley studied her seriously for a long moment before shaking her head. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Not a wizard. That takes spellbooks and things, right?"

"I suppose," Laura agreed slowly, watching Ashley's face closely. She didn't particularly trust the look on it. "What are you thinking?"

The corner of Ashley's mouth turned upward into a smile. No, not a smile. It was more of a smirk. "I think," she said, "that it never hurts to have a bard watching your back."

Laura opened her mouth. Then she closed it.

Ashley looked even more amused.

"No," Laura said, shaking her head. "I'm not a bard. I mean, yes, this place is weird. But it's not that weird."

"Why don't you try to give me inspiration?" Ashley asked teasingly. Well, mostly teasingly. Laura thought she heard a bit of seriousness mixed in there too.

Laura rolled her eyes and started walking again, wanting nothing more than to put some distance between her and that conversation. A bard. Hardly. A rogue, maybe. She could buy that. But she wasn't a bard.

*

An eight hour walk away seemed a lot longer that afternoon than it had that morning, when they'd been relatively well-rested and hadn't already been walking for the entire day. It had sounded like a day trip when they'd set out. Now? It sounded more like torture.

"Do your legs hurt as much as mine?" Ashley asked, glancing over at Laura.

Laura's only response was to groan.

Ashley's mouth twitched, like she was trying to hide a smile. Then she turned her gaze back towards the path they were following. They had left the main road an hour or two earlier, switching to a small path trailing through the trees that seemed to be leading them deeper into the hills away from civilization.

Laura sighed as Ashley picked up her pace a little, almost as if she was taking the fact that they were both tired as a sign to move faster. Not that she could blame her. It was starting to get dark, and Laura didn't think either of them was particularly looking forward to trying to camp out without any real supplies.

No, the sooner they got to the ruins they'd heard about and found these mysterious lights, the better. Or the worse. One of those.

Something grabbed Laura's arm.

She gasped, coming to an abrupt halt. She jerked her head to the right, only to see Ashley standing there with one of the fingers of her free hand over her lips. Laura raised an eyebrow.

Ashley gestured with her head, and Laura followed her gaze.

In the distance, barely visible in the growing shadows, was what looked like a stone structure of some type. It was crumbling and seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. And, more importantly, it was surrounded by hundreds of tiny glowing lights that Laura would have taken as fireflies if it wasn't too cold for them.

"I take it that's the ruins we were looking for," Laura muttered under her breath.

"That would be my guess," Ashley agreed.

The two of them stood there for a long moment, staring out into the growing darkness. The lights up ahead seemed to grow brighter as the sky dimmed.

"Do you think those lights are dangerous?" Laura asked quietly.

Ashley shrugged. "Probably," she replied. "Hasn't everything else around here been dangerous?"

Laura couldn't help but snort a bit at that. It wasn't as if she could argue.

Ashley grinned at her.

Laura shook her head. "Come on," she said, not pulling her arm out of Ashley's loose grip. "We should keep moving. The sooner we figure out what the hell is going on, the sooner we can get home."

"We hope," Ashley added.

Laura rolled her eyes dramatically. "Are you always this depressing?" she asked. "Have I just never noticed?"

If anything, Ashley's grin grew even wider. She tightened her grip on Laura's arm and started forward again, almost pulling Laura along with her.

Smiling despite herself, Laura started moving a little faster to keep up with Ashley. It wasn't full dark yet, but it was well on its way there. The sky above them was more grey than blue, and there were some faint pinpricks of lights that looked like stars. Both of the moons were just starting to fill out, although only one of them looked even remotely close to being full, and—

"There are two moons," Laura said with a frown.

Ashley glanced up. "Huh," she said. "That's not something you see every day. Night. You know what I mean."

Laura kept frowning. Two moons. That meant something, she knew that it did. She couldn't for the life of her remember where she would have heard or seen something like that, though. _Star Wars_ , maybe? No, that was two suns. _Dragon Age_? Maybe that was it. _Dragon Age_. She remembered reading somewhere or other that there were supposed to be two moons in that world, even though she didn't think the games ever showed more than one at a time.

... no, that wasn't it.

"Laura? Are you okay?"

Laura was pulled back to the present at the sound of Ashley's voice. She'd apparently stopped walking, and she got the impression that Ashley had probably been tugging at her arm for a few seconds judging by the worried look on her friend's face.

"Sorry," Laura said sheepishly. "I'm trying to figure out why the whole two moons thing seems so familiar. I know that I've seen or heard something about that before."

Ashley frowned. " _Star Wars_ , maybe? You're thinking of the two suns in the first one?"

Laura hesitated for a second before shaking her head. That same thought had crossed her mind, but... "I don't think so."

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Ashley shrugged. "It's probably not important," she said. She gave Laura a careful look. "Ready to keep moving?"

Laura hesitated for a second or two before nodding. She couldn't shrug off the feeling that there being two moons was more important than Ashley seemed to think that it was, but she couldn't figure out _what_. "Yeah, let's go."

Ashley set off at once, her hand still resting on Laura's arm as they moved closer to the ruins. The floating lights up ahead seemed to grow brighter and brighter the closer they got to them, looking less like the fireflies they had from a distance and more like glowing orbs. Larger-than-expected glowing orbs.

"We should probably try not to touch those," Laura said, eyeing the orbs a bit warily. The closer they got to them, the larger they looked, and she couldn't tell if it was because of the distance playing tricks on their eyes or if they really were getting bigger. Considering how their day had been going, both options seemed possible. And possibly deadly.

Ashley nodded. "No argument here."

Laura took a steadying breath. They were hopefully on their way to finding a way home. Preferably without anything else going wrong.

*

Laura groaned as her back collided heavily with the floor at the bottom of the stone stairs. They'd seemed perfectly fine and normal, right up until the point where they had turned into a slide instead of a staircase. "Fuck."

"Laura!"

Ashley's voice was coming from somewhere above her, presumably at the top of the stairs that Laura had just gone sliding down. She sounded more than a little terrified. Not that Laura could blame her all that much. She was pretty scared herself, considering she hadn't had any idea what was at the bottom of the stairs until she'd went sprawling out there.

Grimacing as her leg let her know that it was probably going to be black and blue within an hour, Laura pushed herself into a sitting position. She poked at a few aching body parts, trying to figure out if she'd broken anything. "I'm not dead!" she called out.

There was a long pause. "I hate you," Ashley said, not even trying to hide the relief in her voice. "Don't scare me like that again."

Laura smiled despite herself before glancing towards the stairs. There was a shadowy form at the top of it that she assumed was Ashley, but it was hard to tell in the darkness of the room. It would make things a lot easier if they had some type of light source.

Four glowing balls of light suddenly appeared in the air between her and the top of the stairs, lighting up the room enough for Ashley to be clearly visible.

Laura stared at the lights. Then she glanced at her hand, which she had apparently been pointing in the area where the lights had appeared. She didn't have any idea what she'd done, but it had definitely been her that had done it. That much she knew.

"Are you using magic again?" Ashley called down. Her voice echoed a bit in the empty stone room they were in.

There was a part of Laura who wanted to tell her to be quiet before someone realized they were there. Then she realized that she'd probably announced their presence to the world when she'd gone sliding down the no-longer-stairs, considering the string of cussing she'd shouted out when the ground had disappeared from under her, so there wasn't much of a point in telling Ashley to be quiet.

"Maybe?" Laura called back her with a shrug. "I don't exactly know what I'm doing here."

Ashley nodded. Or, at least, Laura thought that she nodded. The lights helped, but it was still dim in the room. "That's fair. I still don't know what happened with me earlier."

"You mean when you totally went into a rage?" Laura shot back teasingly.

Ashley didn't reply, not that Laura had really expected her to say anything. She seemed more distracted than Laura would have thought, though, as if she had thought of something. Where she was standing up on the second level, Ashley knelt down and seemed to be inspecting the stairs. She reached out and touched something, and without a sound they suddenly turned back into the slide that had sent Laura sprawling earlier.

As she kept watching, Ashley sat down and slid down the no-longer-stairs as if she was a kid at a playground. She landed at the bottom without a scratch and all but jumped to her feet as she came to a halt.

"I hate you," Laura said dryly.

Ashley grinned. "You forgot to check for traps," she teased. "I said you weren't a rogue, and that just proved me right."

Laura stuck out her tongue at her.

Ashley threw her head back and laughed. Then she held out her hand and offered it to Laura.

It was just then that Laura realized she was still sitting on the cold, stone floor.

Flushing slightly, Laura reached up and took Ashley's hand, letting herself be pulled to her feet. Her leg protested a bit when she put her full weight on it, but she was pretty sure nothing was actually broken other than her pride.

"It's much easier to check for traps when you can just roll a d20," Laura muttered under her breath.

Ashley grinned at her.

Shaking her head, Laura reached over and looped her arm in Ashley's. "Come on," she said, "let's go try to solve the mystery of where we are, how we got here, and why we showed up in the first place."

"Or die trying?" Ashley suggested.

The glare that Laura shot at her might have had a bit more heat to it than she'd intended. Still, she couldn't help but feel that it was probably justified, all things considered.

Ashley leaned in and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Sorry," she said. "Just trying to keep things from getting too heavy."

"I think you're a little late," Laura muttered under her breath.

Ashley opened her mouth to reply. She closed it when a scream suddenly sounded somewhere in the distance, echoing a little even after it cut off abruptly.

Laura looked at Ashley. Ashley looked at Laura.

"That didn't sound good," Ashley said after a long pause. Her tone was still fairly light, but Laura could hear the tension in it now.

Laura took a step closer to her, their arms still looped together. "No," she said softly, staring off into the distance. "It really didn't."

She brought up her free hand and gestured towards the passageway she could see heading off into the darkness in front of her. The orbs of light that she had apparently created went floating in that direction, lighting up the corridor and revealing yet more crumbling stone in front of them.

Ashley's eyebrows went up.

Laura grinned. Just a little. As much as she wanted to get home, she had to admit that having magic was ridiculously cool.

*

"Do you really think this will work?" Ashley asked.

Laura shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

The look that Ashley shot her could have melted solid metal. Laura was almost certain of it.

Both of them looked at the glowing orb that was floating in front of them. It was still a mystery what it was, but everything that they'd seen the past hour or so had made it clear that it was behind all of the odd happenings that had been going on recently.

They had worked their asses off to quietly slip past the somewhat terrifying woman with greenish skin and long, pointed ears who had been floating in mid-air and chanting in some foreign language a few rooms back. And that had led them to... whatever it was that they'd found. Which they'd been staring at for a good fifteen minutes, trying to decide what to do.

They'd heard the sound of fighting start in the distance a few minutes earlier, letting them know that they were running out of time. They weren't entirely certain who or what had decided that brute force was a better option than stealth, and neither of them particularly wanted to find out.

Ashley took a deep breath. "Okay," she said. "I'm going to touch it. If it kills me, I'm coming back as a ghost and haunting you."

"Don't even joke about that," Laura shot back at her.

Ashley gave her a weak grin that didn't even remotely meet her eyes. Then, with one last shaky breath, she reached out and touched the orb.

There was a bright flash of light, and Laura's eyes shot closed before she could stop them. She immediately opened them again as soon as the light started to fade, blinking wildly to get rid of the spots floating in her vision.

Ashley was gone.

"I really hope that was supposed to happen," Laura whispered. Her voice sounded overly loud in the sudden stillness.

She took a shaky breath, stealing herself. Then she reached out towards the orb.

"I saw something flash up ahead!"

Laura spun around at a voice coming from somewhere behind her, back in the corridor that she and Ashley had made their way through earlier. It was unfamiliar, but at the same time she would have sworn that she'd heard it before. It sounded vaguely Eastern European, kind of like... like...

A blue tiefling came around the corner and immediately froze, eyes going wide as she stared straight at Laura. For her part, Laura stared right back, her breath suddenly catching in her throat.

She kept staring as more figures appeared behind the tiefling. A human woman with dark skin. A half-orc. An aasimar. Another human, this one a man with reddish hair. A goblin. A firbolg.

Another tiefling, this one with lavender skin and enough tattoos that Laura could clearly make them out from a distance.

Without a word, Laura reached out and touched the orb. She thought that she heard yelling, someone calling out for her to stop, but all she could see was a bright, unending light. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to protect her eyes from the burning glow that seemed to surround her...

... and when she opened them, Travis was staring at her with an amused look on his face.

"Gah!"

Laura flailed, and the next thing she knew she was sprawled out on the floor beside her sofa. Ashley was still sitting on the sofa, staring at her with wide eyes, while Travis was trying unsuccessfully not to laugh at the entire predicament.

Ashley met her gaze, and in that instant Laura _knew_ that it hadn't just been a dream. She could see it in her friend's eyes.

"I know that Ronin was a bit fussier than usual when I tried to put him to bed, but I wasn't gone long enough for you to fall asleep," Travis said, shaking his head.

"You're not the one who was up at 3am last night when he woke up screaming," Laura pointed out, the words slipping out almost on autopilot. Banter with her husband she could do, no matter how confused she was just then.

Travis gave her a Look. She could practically see the capital L. "Yes, I was."

Laura opened her mouth. Then she closed it. "Well, you weren't the one who was up at 5am."

For a second, she thought Travis was going to argue. He closed his mouth with an amused huff, though, before reaching down to offer her his hand.

She let him pull her to her feet, grimacing a bit as her thigh gave a slight twinge of pain. She must have hit it wrong as she fell. Off the sofa.

Laura pointedly didn't think about any other possible reasons for her thigh to be hurting, like falls down a set of stone steps. Because if she thought about that just then, she didn't think that she'd be able to stop. And she needed more time to process things first.

"Hey!"

Travis sounded more amused than upset, but Laura still jerked her head in his direction. He was staring at the sofa. Or, more precisely, at a familiar small box sitting on the sofa. "You're a thief," he said teasingly, giving Laura a grin.

Then he reached out to pick up the box.

Laura's hand darted out, and she grabbed the box before Travis could touch it. "Let's save it for later," she said quickly. "We don't want to open everything all at once, do we?"

Travis shot her a suspicious look, but he didn't argue. "Okay," he said slowly. "Did you want to finish the movie, or—"

"Yes," Ashley said, cutting him off. "We want to finish to finish the movie."

He looked at her. Then he looked at Ashley. "One of you is going to have to fill me in on what I missed," he said slowly. Laura had the distinct impression that he wasn't talking about _Jumanji_.

"Or we could rewind it," Laura said brightly. Or, at least, as brightly as she could.

Travis stared at her for a long moment before his gaze darted over towards Ashley and then back. "Sure," he agreed slowly. "Or we could do that."

Laura gave him a weak smile before sitting back down on the sofa. As she did, she carefully tucked the small box under the cushion behind her.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/settiai)


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